Blood in the Dark
by Keye
Summary: In an AU where Voldemort has gained the upper hand, werewolves are treated no better than muggles. Here, Thane O'Riley must learn this the hard way.


A/N: Sorry, this is an earlier piece I wrote and I know it's not the best, but I wanted to start small while I finish up some more interesting stuff for this site. Constructive criticism welcome, so long as that's what it is.

Thane O'Riley's head jerked up immediately and his deep gold-green eyes narrowed at the sound of footsteps outside his home. No normal human could have heard these men coming, but he wasn't exactly normal unless you didn't think werewolves were unusual. Everyone in the O'Riley clan was a werewolf for so many generations that none of them could remember who had been the first to carry the wolf blood. Every child and spouse that entered the family was given the bite by the male head of the family that passed the gift into their blood. He remembered very vividly the day that his father had given him the blood. The terror had been astronomical, but he couldn't exactly say it wasn't worth it. The sounds outside were a perfect example of reasons why he should be grateful, as he wouldn't have heard those men had he not had the wolf blood.

A low growl started in his throat as he pulled his wand out of his robe pocket and approached the door silently, all of his senses trained on the intruders. Had they been friendly, they would be sneaking around, and he knew it. _They're close...what do they want? _He lived alone, which meant they had to be there for him, and he didn't recognize the whispering voices. He didn't like intruders; they were always more trouble than they were worth. He was infinitely surprised when one of them knocked on his door, though. He hesitated for a moment, then stepped up to the door, his wand ready for any spells they might throw at him. He was not a dueler, not like Chase had always been, or her brother for that matter, but he could usually handle himself. There were three men outside, though. _Oh, Chase...thank God you left..._ He sighed and opened the door at the second knock, now worried that it might be some news of her. Her type of people might sneak around until they knew everything was safe, especially with how things were going lately. With the Dark Lord in power, aurors had to be careful. He just hoped that was a decent assumption in this case.

That hope seemed to have been a bad idea as he caught a whiff of the man at the door's scent and saw him. He wore a black hooded cloak, and a quick glance told Thane that his companions were in hiding. Still reasonable for an auror, but the smell wasn't. It was a scent Thane didn't trust, and he was a far better judge of smell than he was good at dueling.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly, not in the mood to be hospitable._ There's a reason the other two are hiding...and it's probably not good..._

"You, actually. May I come in?" the man asked in a voice that sounded as though it had been soaked in oil.

"No, you can't. What do you want with me?" he repeated, his wand hidden from the man's sight.

"Our Lord has asked for your cooperation and services."

"I don't have any services to offer."

"Oh, you do, werewolf," the man responded in a low voice, his eyes shining maliciously. Thane growled again, about to slam the door in the man's face.

"I have no services to offer. Good day," he said, and he actually did shut the door, though it didn't stay shut for long. One single shout rang out from the man in front of the door and Thane was thrown off of his feet as his door was blasted off of its hinges. His ears rang painfully and he winced as he pulled himself to his feet. All three men were within his house in second and around him, having obviously practiced this beforehand or had experience. He didn't like either though. He growled, his eyes flashing angrily and glancing around momentarily for his wand. He'd somehow lost it when the door was blasted in, so now he was unarmed and surrounded by these men. _Great...this is going to be a **really** bad day..._ He reached quickly for a nearby chair and whipped it around at one of the men, hitting the wizard's shoulder solidly and getting some sort of hope from his cry of pain. A cold rope snaked out of the first wizard's wand at him, wrapping itself around the wrist still clutching the chair and the man jerked it towards himself, cause Thane to pitch forward. The same ropes shot out of the final man's wand, latching onto his other wrist and making things far more difficult for him.

_How dare they! This is **my **house!_ he thought furiously, his temper beginning to get the best of him. That would mean he could change, so he usually fought it off as best as he could, but in this case, he welcomed the wolf. He pulled at the ropes with all of his might as he felt the familiar agony of the shift from human to wolf. Bones ground against each other and organs rearranged, but he didn't stand still. The wizard he'd hit with the chair was up again and flinging some more ropes at him. _You're all fools! Waiting for the moon would have meant I had Wolfsbane potion in me..._

His mouth became overly crowded as his teeth grew and changed, but it wasn't until the fur began to sprout that the wizards seemed to realize what was happening. How they hadn't noticed his screams becoming less human was beyond him.

"Oh, bloody hell! How is he shifting without the moon?"

"Just stun 'im!"

"We can't! We don't know the effects it'll have on him! If it doesn't work or kills him, it'll be out heads!"

_So they definitely want me alive...I'll be using that information..._ That was his last entirely human thought before the change was complete. The wolf was loose, and the potion which usually handed the controls to Thane was absent from the equation. With no human inhibitions and the wolf's desire for human meat, there was going to be blood spilt, not to mention the fact that his paws were slimmer than his hands and wrists, meaning they slid loose from the ropes binding them. Of course, this wasn't an expected development, and one that he took full advantage of by immediately leaping at the guy he'd hit with the chair earlier. The wizard was a fool, throwing his arms in between Thane's teeth and his own face and throat, dropping his wand in order to grasp the wolf's jaws with his hands. Thane bit down, ignoring the man's screams and delighting in the hot, salty sweet draught on his tongue. A quick aggressive maneuvering of his jaws allowed him to finish the job he'd started, thought he wolf was further irritated that he couldn't relax and feed as he wanted. Wolves may draw out the hunt for amusement at times, but they fed when they killed. The other two wizards had made that impossible. Oh, how he hated Death Eaters.

A horrible pain coursing through him brought a snarl and a yelp and he twisted around to see exactly what had caused it when it faded. The wizard who had momentarily had the presence of mind to Crucio him stood horrified beside his remaining comrade.

"The bloody monster! Look what he did!"

"That's why he's needed! Get him!"

The wolf leapt out of the way of their new curses, his teeth biting deeply into one of their calves and his hips striking the other man's legs hard enough to knock him down, just as caribous in the Americas fell. Thane's teeth were at his throat in an instant, though he didn't hesitated to savor the taste or screams this time, his attention turning to his final foe, the first Death Eater who's approached him

"_Avada Kedavra!_" the man cried, the spell striking the spot where Thane had been a moment before. He growled, watching the wizard try to make it to the door. _Don't bite unless you plan to kill..._ That was his family's rule, which explained why they ran more often than fighting human enemies. And he'd bitten. He couldn't pass his family's lycanthropy on, so he really had no choice. The wolf wanted the wizard dead anyway, and he was powerless to stop it right then. Within moments, it was too late to stop the wolf and he was glad of it, to be totally honest. Those men had gotten what they deserved. And thinking back later, he couldn't help but think that _he'd_ gotten what he deserved as well.

Thane woke up with a blaring headache that made migraines seem gentle and looked around, each movement causing a new throb of pain in his head. He was in a ...dungeon? Did dungeons truly still exist? Apparently so. He raised one hand to his throbbing head and winced at a sudden pain in his wrists. Looking down, it seemed that acknowledging the silver chains against his skin was all that was necessary to bring the pain to his attention. His wrists were a gory mess, the initial burns raw and bleeding from the continued contact with the poisoned metal. _That explains the headache... _Too much contact with silver made all of his kind sick, beginning with headaches and continuing on with nausea, vomiting and fevers, as time passed. He'd never even gotten as far as a headache this bad before, as the burning was usually enough to make him let go of whatever silver he was touching.

He picked himself up off the cold stone floor and crawled over to the wall nearby so that he could sit with his back leaning against it. That left him facing the door, a definite improvement, though he didn't know how long it would be before his position would prove useful, of really, _if_ it would. Would it really matter if he knew what came through that door a few seconds early? He didn't know. What he did know was that he was cold, naked, and just generally uncomfortable on the cold, wet floor. The nakedness didn't bother him as much as it would bother most people because he'd grown up a werewolf in a family of werewolves. Shapeshifting was not clothing friendly, it was just a fact of life. And to be honest, there was nothing about his human form that he didn't like. If the ones who had chained him there had expected his nakedness to be a punishment, they were sadly mistaken. It was mildly irritating, but not bad enough that he really worried about it.

It seemed hours had passed as he sat with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head resting on his knees before he heard any movement outside the small, dank room he was in. The headache had progressed in this time and the coming of the nausea was no surprise, but also served to help him keep track of time. It had to have truly been hours if he was getting nauseous. After that realization, the burning, cold and pain became his world. He might have slept sometime in there, and he knew he was sick when the door opened and he raised his head with some difficulty. The room seemed to be swimming around him, and the figure that approached him wasn't clear enough for him to make out a face. He flinched too late when the figure reached out to touch his face for a second, and was trying to figure out who the man was when a woman's voice issued from the figure's mouth. The first face that swam to the front of his mind was Chase's, and his feverish mind wished it was her so badly that he thought it might be.

"Chase?"

"Who's Chase? Was someone living with him?" the woman asked, ignoring him and apparently speaking to people behind her that Thane couldn't see.

"No, we didn't see any evidence of another person."

"No pictures?"

The man hesitated before answering, having not thought of checking for pictures. "Er, we didn't check. The living room was pretty badly damaged from the struggle he put up, and everyone was a little upset by the bodies and the blood."

She seemed to accept that because she didn't ask anymore questions. Even unable to think straight, Thane had quickly realized that this woman wasn't Chase and that he hadn't escaped the people who'd come for him in the end anyway.

"He's got a fever from the silver, so hopefully it'll make him more likely to agree to cooperate. Or at least easier to control with the Imperious Curse. Werewolves are notorious for being difficult to control," she said matter-of-factly, still talking as though Thane wasn't there. When she suddenly spoke to him, her tone had become friendlier, and the change in her demeanor was drastic enough to set the warning bells in his throbbing head off. "We need your help, werewolf, will you give it?" The request sounded innocent and sweet enough, even if she'd called him 'werewolf'.

"For what?" he asked, the hoarseness of his voice surprising even him.

"A few things. We'll take the chains off and give you some clean, dry clothes," she told him persuasively. _Dry clothes would be nice...it's cold in here..._

"Why is it so cold and wet in here?"

"It's cold because you have a fever, and wet because the blood on your face was unsettling enough to see that the men behind me thought it necessary to hose it off." Again, that cold, casual tone. "Help us, for medicine and clothing?"

"Not if I don't know how I'm to help," he said, the events that had landed him there beginning to come to mind. There had been mention of a 'lord', and that was never a good sign. "Were you the one who shot the stunner?" he asked suddenly.

"If you won't cooperate, neither will I. I have to deliver a cooperative werewolf to my lord, and you're the one most likely to impress him. Will you help, or do I need to be a little more convincing?"

"I won't work for him."

"You're going to work for him, werewolf, I promise," she said coldly. "_Crucio!_"

And so it began. Even sick, he didn't make any sounds during the first few rounds of the Cruciatus, but even the most stubborn and strong-willed witches and wizards give in to the necessity of a scream eventually. His tormentor seemed to have believed he was going to give her a different answer after his first scream, but the cold triumph in her voice only made him laugh bitterly at her.

"Ready to cooperate?"

"Do you have any idea whatsoever of how painful it is for a person's bones and organs to shift around and change shape?" he asked breathlessly, vaguely wondering how this would end. He'd made his point, though. If he could keep from screaming during the Cruciatus curse, that only proved how painful shifting was.

"I take it that's a 'no' in dog?"

"Go to hell!" The dog comment ground his nerves enough to make him seriously angry, which was good for him. Werewolves were harder to deal with when they lost their tempers, even if he was too sick to change. He wanted to change, wanted to get his teeth into her, but the right amount of silver made any werewolf far safer. Lucky her.

He started to lose track of the time and even what was real as the fever worsened and messed with his mind. Hell, he got to the point that he couldn't distinguish wolf thoughts from human. Every werewolf went through life with wolfish thoughts, and in his family, tendencies, but they all kept a firm grip on their human sides. Insanity, grief and delirium could make that control slip. Thane had never personally lost himself like that, but his mother had when his father was killed by Death Eaters and Thane brought his body home. She'd been a terror, shifting moods and shapes unexpectedly, something that Thane had been forced to deal with. He still had some fading scars from his mother's claws and teeth as souvenirs. Now, he felt the slip, and didn't even recognize it for what it was. All he realized was that with the wolf's thoughts came pride and strength, two things he desperately needed.

"The Cruciatus isn't working. I think he's just going to pass out," the woman finally said, obviously disappointed. "_Imperio!_" _Stand up, wolf! Stand up!_

Stand up? That would pull at the chains and hurt his wrist, why stand up? _Stand up! Damn dog, stand up!_ Dog? He wasn't a dog! He was a wolf, the alpha male! Nobody told him what to do! he raised defiant gold-green eyes up to face her, the look on his face suggesting that he knew something that she didn't. He could hear yelling, cursing and fighting upstairs while he tormentors seemed oblivious of it. "You're in deep shit," he growled menacingly, but it wasn't until a few minutes later that they understood what he meant, and by then it was too late. The cavalry had arrived, and there was only one thing on Thane's mind; the woman who had tormented him. The same one that had backed away from the fighting and into his grasp. His hand was on her throat, butting off her air, when he grabbed her wand and tossed it towards a body that smelled both familiar and comforting. Without hesitation, the figure caught the wand and began whipping curses about with both wands in a swirl of luxurious, long dark brown hair and a deep blue cloak. His concern was the woman suffocating in his arms, though. The one whose pleading eyes had looked so different when she was torturing him. Thane wasn't a killer, but the wolf was, and he wasn't capable of resisting the wolf's will in his condition. He watched as his tormentors eyes grew dark, a part of him only wishing that he'd been able to use teeth, to taste her blood in his mouth instead of simply strangling her, but it was impossible. When he released her body, the more human part of his brain seemed to understand for a moment what he'd just done, but it didn't last for long. Over-exposure to the silver and the strain of an agonized torture session finally took its full effect, causing him to pass out.

He again woke with a blasting headache, but at least this one didn't feel as though a herd of horses was stampeding through his brain. He could also think straight, though with a certain degree of pain. _This waking up with migraines thing is getting old really fast..._ The headache wasn't his only concern, though. He could hear someone breathing in the room, so he knew he wasn't alone, and there was a familiar smell on the bed he was in. Wait, he was in a bed? Yes! _So far, so good..._ But whose bed? He knew the person, he just couldn't place it just yet. It wasn't someone he particularly liked, he knew that, so who?

Opening his eyes and focusing on the figure seated beside the bed, he suddenly realized whose bed it was. He was wrapped in a quilt that smelled distinctly of Connor Batten, his ex-fiancé's overprotective brother and the reason why she was his ex and not his wife at the moment. And to make things even more interesting, Chase herself sat in the chair beside him, looking absolutely gorgeous despite the tired look in her sapphire blue eyes. The light in the room made the natural red highlights in her otherwise dark brown hair gleam, giving her a fiery beauty. The same woman who was later referred to as the Ice Queen was quite the opposite at this point in her life, and her demeanor reflected that as well. The moment she realized he was awake, she flashed him a weary, but radiant smile. Her deep blue cloak lay draped over a chair near the door, and the pale, unblemished skin of her arms was bare due to the comfortable gray muggle t-shirt he knew was her favorite.

"You're awake, I was worried," she said happily, and the sound of her voice almost made it possible for Thane to forget that she was no longer his.

"How long have I slept?" he asked hoarsely, raising his right hand to rub his head and discovering that the wrist was bandaged up and surprisingly, didn't hurt. _It's a miracle...ow, my head..._

"Almost two days now. How do you feel?"

"You tell me," he said softly, lapsing into an old game of theirs without thinking. She used to touch him and try to figure out from the things she saw how he felt or what he was thinking. They hadn't done it in almost three months, since he'd suggested she do as her brother asked until she was sure she was ready to join his family. He loved her immensely, but he would never bring her into the pack that his family was without her understanding of exactly what she was getting into. He couldn't help but imagine how magnificent she would be as a wolf, though. It just came to his mind every now and then, especially when her gorgeous red streaked hair caught the light. She would be magnificent if that was what she chose.

"Thane..." Her happiness had wilted just a little at the memory.

"Just do it, please," he again asked softly. Perhaps she would understand how he felt about her instead of the extent of his injuries. He almost began to think that she wouldn't do it, but she finally smiled softly at him again and took his hand. Closing her eyes to concentrate, he watched her face carefully as he waited. He thought for a second that she flinched, and that the smile she gave him when she opened her eyes again was forced, but he couldn't be sure.

"What did you see?"

"You, happy. And with a redhead as protective as you are, someone who can give you what you want if you're willing to accept it," she said.

She wasn't overly surprised when, quite some time after she'd forgotten about it, she met the redheaded man who would give Thane all that he could want. Thane accepted.


End file.
